Savvy Shopper: Cut you household shopping expenses in half

The Savvy Shoppers’ goals including halving your bill for household items in half the time. Before getting into too much detail, we would like to give an explanation of how this program will guide you to extract savings before you leave the house, at the store, and after you get home. Here are some of the principles:

The home front

Frugal living begins at home. Decisions and actions at your home will make or break your ability to save. For example:

A. Do you waste food? Obviously, trying to save money on food that is thrown away is pure waste. Studies estimate that the average home throws away $500 in food or 14 percent of the typical grocery bill.

B. Do you keep enough food in your pantry so you can take advantage of coupons and specials? Doing this enables you to bide your time, wait for coupons and specials, and achieve significant savings.

There are many other practices in the home that affect your bottom line. No matter how efficient the home, at least 5 percent of household cost can be cut by tightening the ship.

Where to buy

The second foundation for enhanced living is understanding what a product should cost. Knowing the brand to buy and the store with the best price gives:

A. An everyday value that you can rely on

B. A price point to judge how good a deal a “special” really is

By determining price points, savings of 30 percent are possible when compared to the way most shop. The Savvy Shoppers will cover techniques to get and remember this information in the least amount of time.

Specials

Needless to say, specials are a superb way to save money. However, one of the key barriers is the time required to obtain and sift through all the available information. Fortunately, there are good methods to sort out the information so that you can enter a store equipped to make the best buys. Overall, specials are capable of cutting your overall costs by up to 15 percent. The Savvy Shoppers cover how to use the newspaper, websites, and email lists to get a handle on specials quickly and easily.

Coupons

In the Lubbock area, a shopper can get 15 percent overall savings on household items like paper products, cleaning products and toiletries using coupons alone. Once a shopper knows her price points and where the specials are, “in store” and “manufacturer” coupons can substantially enhance the savings. For most people, a key barrier to using coupons is coupons can be hard to find and confusing. The Savvy Shoppers will cover how to unlock this store of value and get greater savings.

Loyalty programs

There are stores that provide instant rebates on items. When combined with coupons and specials, a shopper can often get paid to take items out of the store. Although it seems unbelievable, some stores pay you to legally shoplift. On top of that, you can get quarterly bonuses for this. Proper use of loyalty programs can cut up to 5 percent on overall shopping expenses. We will demonstrate the power of these programs and how to take full advantage.

Credit card reward programs

If you hold a balance on your credit card or have trouble controlling credit card spending, PLEASE ignore this section. If you are comfortable with credit cards and are absolutely determined to never carry a balance, there are credit cards that offer up to 5 percent cash back on groceries. The Savvy Shoppers give tips for getting the most out of your credit cards. An overall cost reduction of 3 percent can be expected using these reward programs.

Partner programs

A program called UPromise earmarks a percentage of your purchases at participating merchants to fund scholarships for students you designate. Depending on your life situation, this program can return 2 percent of your purchases in the form of scholarships. In addition, there are frequent flyer and other similar programs that operate the same way.

Rebates

Rebates can reduce your overall shopping bill by 5 percent. We will cover methods to overcome the key obstacles to using rebates including:

A. Losing rebates

B. Forgetting about rebates

C. Manufacturers “losing” or “never receiving” your rebates

Maximizing value

Determining the best quality for the money and making sure you get it.

A. Key factors to look for when making purchasing decisions

B. Using the complaint process when promised and delivered are different

C. Using warranties to maximum advantage

Trash to treasure

When people throw away food and beverage containers, they are throwing away money. Manufacturer loyalty programs like Coke Rewards give substantial rewards for entering container codes. We will highlight these types of programs so you can cash in.

Pay it forward

In my opinion, a person can only prosper if our society thrives as well. I will provide tips on:

A. Buying American — There are many common items that have been taken over by overseas manufacturers. We will provide names of American suppliers that provide better value while keeping your fellow citizens employed.

B. Supporting education — To help education, I will raise awareness of where to find box tops/soup labels for education so they can be clipped and donated to neighborhood schools.

C. Recycling

Although each stage saves small amounts of money, the overall effect can result in savings of 60 percent and a reduction in the overall time you spend shopping. In future Savvy Shopper articles, we will dive into these subjects and give specific guidelines on how to get there. In the meantime, please visit our Facebook site (Log on to Facebook and enter “Lubbock Savvy Shopper” in the search tool) for more tips. We look forward to hearing from you and having you as part of our fast growing community.